In addition to the digital components of my work with the program, the directors stressed the need to incorporate hands-on projects. At first, this request threw me, as I realized my previous approaches in the program and elsewhere had been reliant less on hands and more on the computer version of digital manipulations and manifestations. Nonetheless, because the course I was teaching centered on creativity, innovation, and technology, it felt broad enough that this directive did not feel insurmountable.
In contrast to the "closed" portfolio assignment I also discuss in this wiki, I wanted this assignment to have an almost infinite number of approaches. Some of the readings on innovation that the students discussed stressed the importance of play in discovering new avenues of thought. Working from this assumption, I developed the Aquarium Assignment (aquarium_project.pdf), which asked students to develop something that they could drop into an aquarium and that would resurface in exactly 60 seconds.
One thing that struck me right away was how many people laughed while they read the assignment and immediately began shouting out ideas. The other thing was how many questions they asked about what was "legal" based on the wording of my assignment---it may have been the closest reading of any text by students in a class of mine. I was asked to clarify almost every word in the document and was grilled about things I never considered, such as where I would get the water and what temperature the water would be.
All through the next week, I fielded numerous e-mail questions asking for clarification as they worked on the prototypes. I stressed there was no right answer, I had no clue what I would do, and asked them to have fun with the process rather than obsess. One student even got kicked out of the university swimming pool for pre-testing his prototype.
When it came time to test the prototypes, they were excited about who was going to go first and began snapping cell phone pictures and taking videos. Each person tried a wholly unique approach, and the experiments ranged from someone who built a circuit box that could force pumped air into a submerged bottle to someone who simply dropped a half-filled Visine bottle. A few people made into the 50-second range, but nobody's prototype surfaced exactly in a minute. Afterwards, the students stayed behind to discuss what went wrong with their prototypes and how they would have changed them to succeed. Here are a few project examples:
Testing a Prototype (Balloon Filled with Alka-Seltzer)
Mitch's Crazy Circuit Box
Mitch's Bottle Awaiting the Flip of the Switch
Some Preliminary Conclusions
This made me reconsider how powerful the tactile and experiential could be in my humanities courses. Although some scholars have focused on such approaches (the work of Jody Shipka comes to mind), the tactile in my courses was primarily limited to books and keyboards and experiences were usually mediated through a screen. Of course, I still believe those are worthwhile, but the Aquarium Assignment made me think about other ways to do things, other combinations of the screen and the tactile, ways of yoking various experiences and making broader connections. In short, while E-WAVE may include "electronic" in its very name and it's easy to get lost in the digital, E-WAVE works can still emanate from a wide range of tactile experiences.
Another interesting thing about this assignment was how students perceived it from disciplinary perspectives. Though many of the students from the humanities, business, and social sciences liked the idea of the assignment, they also immediately assumed their prototypes would be abject failures and that every single engineering student would build a successful prototype and subsequently make fun of everybody else. In retrospect, this assumption may have held some students back from engaging with the assignment completely, and no matter how much I tried to encourage some of these students, their best comfort came when they saw the engineers' prototypes "failing" in the same ways theirs did, and sometimes more spectacularly. Interestingly, these sentiments were also voiced (and reversed in the same way) with some engineering students when it came to creating the portfolios. In other words, it's important to be aware of any disciplinary stereotypes students may bring to the table and work through them.
Thoughts on Project Revisions
As I developed the assignment, I worried the students would think it was not challenging or a waste of time. Instead, the students expressed interest in doing similar work in the future and this led me to think about how such assignments could be incorporated with the program's E-WAVE initiatives. Some elements the program wants to develop in students are leadership and improved communication skills, particularly as they relate to proposing projects, so a longer cycle for the assignment incorporating other aspects would be helpful. They also seemed eager to the share their prototypes (and those of the other students) with their friends and relatives.
When I do the assignment again, I believe producing a digital pre- and post-reflection on YouTube (and perhaps challenging other students at other colleges to take part int he challenge) would be beneficial. Most of the prototypes didn't behave at all like the students thought they would, and they could outline their process thus far and detail how they believe the prototype should function in the pre-reflection. They could then post the results of the actual tests and also include a post-reflection about what went right/wrong and how they would change it for next time. The added reflections would enrich the assignment's objectives and the added real audience component could provide a further spur to engage the project. Since the class was a tight-knit group, one potential obstacle in the future would be the possible embarrassment of posting failed prototypes to a potentially large audience on YouTube, but the real audience might also increase the fun tension that characterized the project for most students.
The Hands-on Challenge: Aquarium Assignment
In addition to the digital components of my work with the program, the directors stressed the need to incorporate hands-on projects. At first, this request threw me, as I realized my previous approaches in the program and elsewhere had been reliant less on hands and more on the computer version of digital manipulations and manifestations. Nonetheless, because the course I was teaching centered on creativity, innovation, and technology, it felt broad enough that this directive did not feel insurmountable.
In contrast to the "closed" portfolio assignment I also discuss in this wiki, I wanted this assignment to have an almost infinite number of approaches. Some of the readings on innovation that the students discussed stressed the importance of play in discovering new avenues of thought. Working from this assumption, I developed the Aquarium Assignment (aquarium_project.pdf), which asked students to develop something that they could drop into an aquarium and that would resurface in exactly 60 seconds.
One thing that struck me right away was how many people laughed while they read the assignment and immediately began shouting out ideas. The other thing was how many questions they asked about what was "legal" based on the wording of my assignment---it may have been the closest reading of any text by students in a class of mine. I was asked to clarify almost every word in the document and was grilled about things I never considered, such as where I would get the water and what temperature the water would be.
All through the next week, I fielded numerous e-mail questions asking for clarification as they worked on the prototypes. I stressed there was no right answer, I had no clue what I would do, and asked them to have fun with the process rather than obsess. One student even got kicked out of the university swimming pool for pre-testing his prototype.
When it came time to test the prototypes, they were excited about who was going to go first and began snapping cell phone pictures and taking videos. Each person tried a wholly unique approach, and the experiments ranged from someone who built a circuit box that could force pumped air into a submerged bottle to someone who simply dropped a half-filled Visine bottle. A few people made into the 50-second range, but nobody's prototype surfaced exactly in a minute. Afterwards, the students stayed behind to discuss what went wrong with their prototypes and how they would have changed them to succeed. Here are a few project examples:
Testing a Prototype (Balloon Filled with Alka-Seltzer)
Mitch's Crazy Circuit Box
Mitch's Bottle Awaiting the Flip of the Switch
Some Preliminary Conclusions
This made me reconsider how powerful the tactile and experiential could be in my humanities courses. Although some scholars have focused on such approaches (the work of Jody Shipka comes to mind), the tactile in my courses was primarily limited to books and keyboards and experiences were usually mediated through a screen. Of course, I still believe those are worthwhile, but the Aquarium Assignment made me think about other ways to do things, other combinations of the screen and the tactile, ways of yoking various experiences and making broader connections. In short, while E-WAVE may include "electronic" in its very name and it's easy to get lost in the digital, E-WAVE works can still emanate from a wide range of tactile experiences.Another interesting thing about this assignment was how students perceived it from disciplinary perspectives. Though many of the students from the humanities, business, and social sciences liked the idea of the assignment, they also immediately assumed their prototypes would be abject failures and that every single engineering student would build a successful prototype and subsequently make fun of everybody else. In retrospect, this assumption may have held some students back from engaging with the assignment completely, and no matter how much I tried to encourage some of these students, their best comfort came when they saw the engineers' prototypes "failing" in the same ways theirs did, and sometimes more spectacularly. Interestingly, these sentiments were also voiced (and reversed in the same way) with some engineering students when it came to creating the portfolios. In other words, it's important to be aware of any disciplinary stereotypes students may bring to the table and work through them.
Thoughts on Project Revisions
As I developed the assignment, I worried the students would think it was not challenging or a waste of time. Instead, the students expressed interest in doing similar work in the future and this led me to think about how such assignments could be incorporated with the program's E-WAVE initiatives. Some elements the program wants to develop in students are leadership and improved communication skills, particularly as they relate to proposing projects, so a longer cycle for the assignment incorporating other aspects would be helpful. They also seemed eager to the share their prototypes (and those of the other students) with their friends and relatives.When I do the assignment again, I believe producing a digital pre- and post-reflection on YouTube (and perhaps challenging other students at other colleges to take part int he challenge) would be beneficial. Most of the prototypes didn't behave at all like the students thought they would, and they could outline their process thus far and detail how they believe the prototype should function in the pre-reflection. They could then post the results of the actual tests and also include a post-reflection about what went right/wrong and how they would change it for next time. The added reflections would enrich the assignment's objectives and the added real audience component could provide a further spur to engage the project. Since the class was a tight-knit group, one potential obstacle in the future would be the possible embarrassment of posting failed prototypes to a potentially large audience on YouTube, but the real audience might also increase the fun tension that characterized the project for most students.